Belly dancing monkeys, blazing lights, sneezing one's head off & Wesak

I saw a belly dancing monkey on the Wesak day.

And Wesak is so bloody noisy this time. 

Wesak has come to be a regular commotion of vehicle honking, annoying voices reciting ridiculous pseudo-Buddhist kavi (honestly, they are atrocious), silencerless motorbikes whirring about like irritating mosquitoes, the same old Mohideen Beg songs repeated over and over again till they are stuck in your head like a bad joke gone sour, dansal opening hullabaloo, wolf whistles, those tiny little bells of kadala carts drowning out the peaceful sound of pirith chanting somewhere in the distance. While all the fun and the general air of festivity is all very well, Wesak seems no longer the beautifully serene deal it used to be.

May winds bring the season a sense of breezy tranquility, rustling the many frills of Wesak lanterns, lovingly and carefully crafted by nimble hands. I have always associated Wesak with the smell of freshly bought oil paper for making lanterns, new store-bought lanterns or what we call buckets, coconut oil, the waffery smell of wires you get when untangling strings of multicolored fairy lights which always remind me of colorful butter icing on birthday cakes. Altogether, a happy, cheerful smell. But I can't smell Wesak this time because of this God-awful cold! :(

Wesak for different people mean different things. For children, it is the season of dazzling blinking lights, ice cream and kadala off street carts and hours and hours of endless fun sightseeing. For vendors, its their chance to clear out their white cloths stocks before they turn yellow, dress their best dummies in white and show off their best white attire on sale. For polititians, its their chance to remind the public of their presence by sponsoring Pandols (or getting someone else to sponsor for them but ensuring its their name on the sponsor list) also making sure their names are announced every 2 minutes, opening dansals (once again making sure their names are announced every 2 mins). Wesak for teenagers is the time to observe other teenagers of the opposite sex, a potential dating ground, a potential ground for getting some innocent flirting done while coyly catching each others' eyes, exchanging shy smiles. Wesak for perverts is ultimate groping paradise. Among the throngs of crowds, its a good excuse to push oneself on women and feel them up and down to their hearts' content. Wesak for jobless morons is the ultimate whistling and commenting ground, a free space to throw water balloons, hurl bucketfuls of water at unsuspecting ladies roaming the streets with the aim of getting some innocent Wesak sightseeing done. Bizarre really........

Ah yes, the belly dancing monkey.........

On the day of Wesak we went on our usual Wesak parole. Not a fully fledged Wesak seeing excursion, just out and about the town. It was then that I saw it. Amidst a group of animals singing and playing instruments (all mechanical ones of course, just one of these rather curious, out of context Wesak-time presentations that people seem to conjure up out of thin air) this mechanical monkey just stood there, belly dancing to the tune of essentially Buddhist songs. The hips gyrated from side to side like one of a skilled belly dancer and let me tell you, it was just plain weird. Way too weird, even for me.

Also, looking at social media these days, it seems that the biggest problem in the country right now is the killing of cows and adopting of stray dogs. Also for many, the killing of dogs in some country far far away (say Alaska, or Mongolia, or Timbuktu, or the North Pole for God's sake) seems like a cause worthy of posting disturbing pictures online and fighting teeth to teeth with whoever dared to challenge their views online. Such a nation of Facebook heroes we have become. Quoting from a personal favorite of one of Darling's Tweets "So everybody cares about dogs and cows. Shaa!", leaves me wondering, what about humans? Ayyo Sri Lanka!

Anyways, Wesak has come and gone. All in all, not the greatest Wesak. That incredible calming sense that descends with the season seems to have been lost in translation somewhere. Sadly.

Tuk tuk revelations

The tuk driver asked me whether we should go through Borella. I told him to take me from a route that avoids the usual city nonsense. And he did.

So we wound through narrow streets lined with modest houses of wood and tin facades, rubble and human bodies. Children played in railway tracks while groups of women, young and old huddled together in groups and starred at the distance in communal unison. Some were crouched on the ground while some perched on cheap plastic chairs that had probably never seen better days. Poverty was evident in this area but the smell of delicious cooking permeated through the air. Nothing fancy - just a flavorsome kiri hodi and some other condiments maybe to be had with rice or perhaps string hoppers. Men waited alongside tiny boutiques selling fruits and vegetables - not a lot, a few beli fruits, some scrawny looking mangoes and papayas, a few bunches of bananas either too small or too ripe to sell.
Most houses had no doors but had curtains on the windows. Girl children in dainty cotton frocks with hair neatly combed back into pony tails or pigtails either crouched on the ground along side their mothers or sat in the laps of aunties and grandmothers and either chattered or stared intently at the elders' faces obviously fascinated. Harsh fluorescent lights inside these houses gave out a cheerful homeliness that would have in another place seemed impossible. In the half light of the evening rapidly heralding the night their faces glowed with a satisfied indolence. I wondered what it would feel like to live amidst such beautiful solidarity. I wondered what the mothers told their girl children as they sent them to wash, tied ribbons in their hair and rubbed talcum powder on their faces. There was a sense of belonging there, a feeling of wholesomeness, a warmth that is unlikely in the solitary lives we lead in our own communities today.

These people were neither slum dwellers nor belonged to the average middle class. They were neatly and properly dressed, the children's faces were washed, their hair combed like that of an average middle class child. They wore sensible cloths like the average middle class but had an air of comfortable relaxation and contentment about them that the average middle class does not have. They had clean cloths and clean manners, clean houses and clean faces. Yet they had no fancy jewellery and I'm sure nor any considerable savings to call their own.

Was anyone even aware that there was such a class? Oh who says that we need to class and grade everything anyway? No need to put things and people in boxes, globes, circles and triangles. We are no longer toddlers.   

And then we fell on to the main road again. A couple was arguing inside a car. A man was yawning behind the wheel. A girl clutched the steering wheel in terror while a bus suddenly swerved in her path and nearly hit her. A woman sighed and looked at her watch in a bus. A youngster was poking around in her smartphone. A young man had his bluetooth on and was on a call. For a moment I imagined him to be talking to himself and I smiled to myself.

The Baseline is such a drab road to travel along. The usual honking, the usual brake lights of vehicles starring at you with their drunken red eyes. The usual air of impatience and annoyance. Unlike the other side of the city - so full of life and warmth. And not the scorching heat of roaring engines coughing out toxic fumes choking your insides, throttling what's left of life inside with their sheer mechanical indifference.

Bridesmaid business

According to my to-be sis-in-law’s sister, the beauty of being a bridesmaid is that you get to experience all the excitement of getting married without actually having to undergo all the responsibilities that come along with it. According to her it’s a no brainer, since you only have to dress as the bride instructs you to dress, without having to worry about how you look on that day. In plain simple words, if you look like the bride of Frankenstein on that day (or worse, bridesmaid of Frankenstein’s Bride), it will all be the bride’s fault not yours. Which is something I do not agree with.

People who know me know that I am not the frilly-attired flower-bearing, cake serving smiley type who perpetually emanates bundles of sugary sweet bridal joy. Hence I am so not your ideal bridesmaidsy type. I have been lucky so far to have been spared of this torture since I am taller than most my friends (I come from a family of long limbs for which I am grateful) and haven’t yet been made the coat rack on which all frilly things that the bride likes hang. The logic is that the bridesmaids should be much shorter than the bride. The aim is apparently, to make the bride stand out by making her escorts look ugly. The intention - not to let one of the lesser beings, the bridesmaids steal the show which I find repulsively degrading as well as personally insulting.

But now, my time has come to become a one of those servile less-prettier-than-the-bride faces. Unfortunately, my brother’s bride-to-be happens to be an inch or so taller than me and therefore, either out of pure sisterly affection or out of obligation, she has insisted that I be one of her bridesmaids. Parents strongly advised against turning down her request (which I was very much tempted to do) and as a result, here I am, one of the frilly lot, letting some strange woman measure me up and down, turn me this way and that, scrutinize my every nook, curve and dimple. This is the first time that my body assets are being so candidly discussed, debated over, agreed upon among one another and I don’t think I like it very much. 

Dancing practices are in full sway (oh I do love the way the dudes move to the music like back-sprained coconut trees) and the household is in uproar, preparing this, that and everything. A man had asked Rs 65,000/- just to teach the wedding dance (Its funny how the word "wedding" instantly raises the price on everything noh?) A saree jacket that only takes around Rs1000/- to stitch goes up to Rs 15,000/-, makeup which is just 1800 becomes 1,00,000 and etc. So as a result, I end up the tutor and them, my faithful students. And I get paid nought :/

Evenings are hot, sticky and energy draining which makes it conducive to neither dancing nor doubling over with laughter at the dance-challenged people. Weddings can be fun I guess, though I am dreading the inch thick makeup, bottles of hairspray emptied over my poor hair and the stifling, suffocating dresses that I am convinced were invented as torture instruments for misbehaving women back in the day.

Await more bridesmaidsy posts. Oh I’m sure there’ll be plenty more where that came from.  

   

Train rides and haunted bungalows!

The three-day trip to Badulla last week deserves a post of its own. If the excitement of the train ride wasn't enough, the haunted bungalow and all the tales heard within it is a spine-tingling thriller which is a tale in itself!

Well we got to ride in the engine room of the train, side by side with the engine driver which was an unforgettable experience. We got to ride through 14 tunnels and let me tell you, riding in the engine room, that is a whole different experience. The engine driver too was a cool fellow who had loads of stories to share, having worked in the railway for 30 odd years. Apparently he has seen 50 deaths during his tenure with him behind the wheel....err..the engine. Some lie in the track and walk away when the train gets near, having changed their minds. Some jump in unexpectedly and those are the ones who really do mean business when it comes to committing suicide.   

We lodged at this old estate bungalow at Passara, a lovely colonial building of over 100 years old. The place was humongous and still preserved the old age charm, replete with grand colonial items (old fashioned furniture, clawed-footed bathtubs, chunky metal Shanks bathroom fittings and etc) with large airy rooms, long windows and your typical Appo (the Sri Lankan version of the head butler) in the white sarong, white shirt and the black belt. The bungalow had three living rooms which we were informed were the rooms where visitors were received according to their importance. Back in the colonial days, the lower officers were received in the small living room closest to the entrance, while the higher ranking officers were received in the slightly larger room next to the former mentioned. The governor and persons of similar stature were received in the much larger, innermost living room and we were told that in days of the past, members of English Royalty had graced that very location. It was almost like time travelling, the many tales that the appo had to tell once we got friendly with him, the setting itself creating a blissful hallucinatory effect on the mind.

And then there's the resident ghost/ghosts. Apparently in one of the rooms, a girl had been murdered once upon a time. So now she roams the bungalow during night and if a woman happens to sleep in the room that she had been murdered, she gets strangled whereas if a man happens to sleep there, he gets pulled off the bed. This is the estate superintendent's quarters and he happens to be a friend of my father and his wife and children too had experienced several inexplicable phenomena while staying there. His wife, the daughter of my father's best friend swears that one night she had been strangled in bed and that she felt a presence leaving her side as she woke. Her elder son, a boy of seven years swears that he saw a womanly figure passing in front of him and crawling under his father's desk. The children had woken up screaming on several occasions while the superintendent has not apparently seen anything. But while he was there, several people , good friends of his have stayed in the room and they each has experienced the ghost in different ways. (A girl had been strangled, two drunk men have sworn that there was a third person in the room with them, a Police DIG who has been there to investigate a murder case has been pulled off the bed, several people who had absolutely no idea about the story could not fall asleep in that room however much they had tried and etc) It was all very fascinating. Until the superintendent's 3 year old daughter said something that raised everybody's hairs.

This little girl who had initially been quite shy became very friendly with me later on. We were all sitting outside chattering nonsense about this and that when the little girl who had been sitting close to me chattering about her toys suddenly told me (mind that we were not discussing ghosts at this point and neither was she anywhere around when we were discussing ghosts) that "that woman" comes sometimes at night and she gets scared. I was wondering what woman she was talking about since the only woman in the household is her mother. Then I asked what she looked like and she told me "that dark woman with hair like yours who occasionally comes. Even aiyya is afraid of her" indicating her 7 year old brother. This managed to let a teeny bit of actual fear into everybody's blood.

The Appo too had the most interesting stories. At first he remained absolutely silent but once we got friendly, he became chatty. Having worked at the same bungalow for more than 40 years, he claims to not having slept a single night there without scattering a line of holy ash over the doorway and the window. He claims that spirits cannot cross these lines. The several times he had to sleep outside in the corridor (when superintendents' wives and children get creeped out, they request him to be at hand) he had felt someone step over him and walk away while when looking back, he had seen a dark shadow of a woman passing. Taking into account that the Appo is a dignified fellow who does not usually talk much, you do tend to believe him. He is faithful and loyal as told to us by my father's friend under whom Appo had served for many years.    

The most hair raising incident happened when my father's old colleagues dropped in for dinner that day. Now my father used to work in Badulla for more than 3 years and he was given quarters at this charming old colonial bungalow as well located a little away from the Badulla town. He has lived there alone for more than 3 years with just the watcher guy and the cook for company (they had their quarters away from the house so practically my father lived in the house alone) and even I when visiting for holidays had stayed there for days all alone. One of the people who visited for dinner is the one who who holds my father's position now and he too has been given quarters at the same place. An incident that he reluctantly came up with (as he is not a believer in ghosts) is that one day as he walked in through the front door of the house, he felt something strange. Hair was raising at the back of his neck and as he looked to the side, a foreigner who was sitting on the sofa got up and walked away. Let me tell you, hearing that about a place where you used to stay alone, sleep alone is not fun at all.               

And then I remembered everything. Although I haven't actually seen anything, I, a heavy sleeper, had always had difficulty sleeping at that place. I was never very comfortable at night and one night, while visitors were occupying my room which was larger, instead of staying in my parent's room as suggested, I asked for another smaller room (to which I was inexplicably drawn to) to be set up for myself as I was writing my final year thesis at the moment and needed a room for myself. This room had large windows, a whole row of windows in fact and I threw several blankets over them when the feeling of being watched became unbearable, thinking that the watcher may just be peeping in from outside. That room in particular was uncomfortable while I had never really felt at ease in any rooms that I had slept in at that house.

And then there's this tale about the white cobra that the caretaker keeps seeing creeping into the house that we often carelessly waved off. Oh well............

Planters' bungalows often have the most fascinating tales. Having been inhabited by many over the years and also owing to the dramatic lives that these planters had led anyways, these houses are bound to have some sentiments echoing within the walls anyway. Anyhow, I am sure that if I stayed there for at least a week, I would have collected enough material to write 2-3 novels as the number of ghost stories, first hand encounters with the supernatural and etc is stupendous. Come to think of it, I think I can pull off at least one novel out of all this!

Speaking of novels, mine is developing rather slowly. Tempted to leave that aside and start on a horror story but I just wouldn't know where to start! Oh well, lets see. "Scattered" sales are good surprisingly for a poetry collection and I am getting positive feedback and well as constructive criticism for which I am grateful. Most comments I get is that they would like to see another poetry collection soon. Let's see. Time to write is rare indeed!

Antisocial Saturday

Saturday mornings, I usually wake up a misanthrope and remain steadfastly so till midday Saturday, only to slightly be able to tolerate a little human company during the weekend. Yesterday however has been an antisocial Saturday. Today a less so but it did take some effort on my part to socialize as life required me to do. Hope the mood won't last right throughout the week :/

Was sitting at a dinner party yesterday and was observing people,listening to what they had to say about everything from toothpaste to their kids' teachers to tap water to their families' eating patterns. I wondered if I could ever make that kind of small talk when my time comes to fill up all the awkward silences at dinner parties - discuss allergy causes for their children and fret about their pooping patterns, woe over the details of morning sickness (what they throw up, when they throw up, what makes them throw up, what made their sisters/mothers/sisters-in-law throw up, etc), which minister is sleeping with whom (other than their own wives of course), best remedies for wrinkles, solar power lamps and etc. I just can't imagine myself there. It was with some effort that I managed to politely nod my head at everything that they said without offending anyone. But then again, I had already zoned out and had that spaced out smile on my face that anyone who knew me would have understood.

Speaking of weekends, most weekends I just don't feel like being the 21st century civilized human being. Being civilized includes wearing cloths, combing hair, getting out of bed, conversing with people other than in unintelligible grunts, being in a good mood, smiling etc. After an entire week of being formal, civilized and prim and proper, the bonds need to loosen allowing room for the primal being inside to jump out and wreck some serious havoc. Unusual you say? Well, I'm not exactly the portrait of normalcy as it were.

Was at the neighborhood Avrudu Uthsawaya briefly when I realized quite suddenly that I want to be 10 years old again. There were a few little girls there around that age, roaming about so very carefree and I wanted to join in, grow a few feet shorter and a few years younger, wearing one of those cute little cotton frocks with a ribbon tied at the back, tugging at the hair carefully combed back into a ponytail, wearing brightly coloured flipflops and flicking my head all around, quite unaware of the tired looking grown up observing the scenario with wistful nostalgia. It was 'un moment eclaircissant' as it were, a sudden yearning that became so very clear, crystal clear, as clear as day as one would say.

But then again, I don't think I was a very happy 10 year old. That period of life was divided between two countries and two cultures, both of which were not very pleasant. I had a class teacher who made life an everyday torture chamber, a woman who obviously had issues of her own and liked to take it out on children that she taught. I for one was a child who never did my homework. I was a shy child who only opened up to those who really cared and who was otherwise a silent kid who liked dreaming away as much as she likes it even now. While other children in the class hastened to please the easily angered woman by waiting for her by the gate, carrying her bags, wishing her good morning etc, I just preferred to remain lost in a world of my own, not giving a shoelace about anything else. I suppose my silence scared and puzzled the woman and maybe I struck her as obnoxious.

The other half of that period was spent in Pakistan where I was an outsider and a woman. I don't think I was an attractive child being very much darker than them and a tad bit overweight and neither was I old enough to be considered a 'woman' to reap whatever little benefit that came with being one. But nevertheless I belonged to the female gender which entitled me to all the discrimination, the public harassment that came along with the curse of being a woman in such a country. I was groped twice at public places which utterly disgusted me although I did not know what it meant. At school, my class teacher, a Pakistani woman told me to cover my head (there was no law in school that requested me to do so as I was not a Muslim and it was an international school which supposedly supported freedom in thought, dress and etc) which I vehemently refused for which I was penalized. I was penalized for thinking freely for my school report says that I am too imaginative for my own good and that it would do well as a girl, to curb that imagination and enthusiasm a little bit in order to thrive well in the society as a respectable woman. In the school van, an older boy, a Pakistani, bullied me saying that I should be riding in the backseat because I am a girl and not be sitting in the front seat as I wanted to. I told him to go take a hike. But then my boldness cost me my social life. And once again I was a different child, silent, dreamy-eyed and preferred the company of soft rustling pages to living breathing human beings whose sole purpose in life seemed to be was to judge.

I guess what I really wanted was to live another 10 year old's life, not go back 15-16 years and live those years all over again. Oh well.........I'll always imagine what its like to be that, a cotton dress-clad girl child, lively and carefree, starring at the world full in the face, quite unaware of what's waiting in store for all that innocence, all that joy.

Becoming a bit of a killjoy, bearer of doom aren't I? I guess its the misanthrope speaking still. Sigh..................  


  

  

Avrudu sells/sales

The world seems to have gotten louder. Everybody seems to be talking all at once all of a sudden. Loud music blares out at you at every stop, vehicles honk louder, engines roar more intensely and I can barely hear myself think! Granted that it IS the Avrudu season after all, one can indeed say that the loudness is only justified. But was it this loud last Avrudu season too? I don't think so.

Looking at the streets and the rate at which the textile shops are filling up during these days, one starts to wonder if all these people have been naked all this time. Its like suddenly the need for new cloths is so great that they are climbing over one another to get to a yard of material as if to save their lives. However, 'tis the season of drying wallets and anxious faces, fumbling hands digging deep into "sale" boxes, angry women yanking and pulling pieces of cloths among each other as if their lives depended on it, impatient drivers, screeching of breaks and large "Sale" signs fluttering about in the breeze. Makes you wonder really, about the nuances of human nature and observing these things can be quite fun.

Speaking of shopping, happened to wander into a textile store during the weekend quite forgetting the fact that it is the season of the crazies, to find the place inundated with franticos running about, cradling armfuls of cloths and holding onto them for dear life. Dressing rooms & women I tell u.... Why they need open the door and model every single piece of clothing in the store for their bfs/men when there's a long queue waiting outside, fidgeting about till their turn in the dressing rooms I'l never understand! Is it the fact that these women cannot make a decision by themselves or do they just want to pose around for the man? Well, its not like the opinion of the men matters anyways, the woman always end up doing what they please while the men folk shuffle their feet behind them looking so forlorn, carrying armfuls/bagfuls of stuff that they are supposed to pay for at the end of the whole excruciating exercise. They look tortured, the poor souls. The only happy-looking men I found in the men's section of the store, enjoying the solitary experience, dabbling in a bit of retail therapy by themselves, far far away from the nagging female presence that irks the male existence somewhere else in the store.  

See, this is exactly why I prefer to do my own shopping, rather than drag around a bored looking male companion. The look of sheer pain on their faces pain me too *shudder*

Avrudu sells good this season. It passes from hand to hand in the form of coloured notes issues from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and sells itself like a common prostitute over blaring speakers and thundering radio broadcasts. Its like a passing illness that causes the crowds to wander the streets like zombies and instead of brains, these zombies consume consumer goods and rather mercilessly too, very unceremoniously.

Oh well, the unbearable heat has subsided the tiniest bit. Let us see how it behaves over the coming couple of weeks. 

BBS please GAL!

I have tried for a very long time to turn a blind eye to this whole "let's hate the other races and point fingers at each other" scenario that's been going on lately, hoping that if I ignore it long enough without contributing to it, that people would soon tire of it. But seems not. Atrocities heighten day by day and my groucho-level goes up every time I spot some post or the other on a social media platform. 

The BBS (aka the Beastly Bullshit Squad) had successfully done their part it seems. In addition to wanting to ban halal, rip hijabs off Muslim women's heads (which the feminist in me secretly condones cz come on, these ladies have pretty faces that they should totally flaunt) and rebelling against contraception for Sinhala women, they have managed to successfully incite the ignorant (or rather bored) "Sinhala Buddhist" majority into a frenzied racist fury. One should only look at the various posts being shared on social media to gag in total disbelief at the sheer blatant animosity, the narrow mindedness of the majority that the shock and disgust just freezes you for a good few minutes. With a herd of brainless bullocks in this country to follow them, no wonder the BBS has such a large fan base, bawling "sadu sadu" at every idiotic stunt that they pull.  Seems that Lankans, better yet the "Sinhala Buddhist" majority are no better than Tamilnadu ignorants who go about brutally attacking innocent Sri Lankans under the slightest provocation.

This is not to say that there are certain Muslims and Tamil people who are as nitwitted as the Sinhala patriotic junkies hammering out BBS-inspired slogans, beating their chests, dangerously whipping their robes/sarongs/sarees/skirts and etc out there. It was just a while back that I was attending a workshop on building intercultural dialog that a Muslim young man, a local university student (I am assuming that one needs at least a tiny bit of intellect to get into a local uni) and an "educated" one at that declared and threatened that the Muslims will overtake Sri Lanka very soon during a peaceful discussion about how to advocate intercultural dialogue between the races for a peaceful future. He was rather aggressive about it and a few other Muslim members of the group joined him in the taunting while the rest of us looked on utterly shocked.

So yes, the truth is that there are extremists in every religion, in every race, in every sphere of life. After all, one is partial to one's own community, however impartial they claim themselves to be. But that does not, by all means, mean that one has to be aggressive, violent in the way in which one remains loyal.

But I am of the opinion that behind this latest racist craze are the authorities themselves, igniting issues with the aim of covering up much larger issues such as the corruption, the declining economy of the country, the seriously effed up education system and etc for which they themselves are to be blamed (Remember the coloured rains, the spaceships, the UN resolution drama, etc just when the fuel prices shot up?)  The general public too is custom-made-stupid for the authorities it seems. Now that the war is over, we have nothing to keep us entertained. Once the colourful rains are done and the spaceships have all left us earthlings in peace, there was simply no entertainment. So now we've resorted to finger pointing and hating. Its the latest trend now.

So the point being, one should not even think of tainting the name of Buddhism by such heinous acts, shameful words and soul crunching aggression. Buddhism is a beautiful philosophy and it does NOT need your bullshit to give off a bad impression to the rest of the world. The people in yellow robes (for I refuse to call them monks) who engage in such acts need to be arrested and properly punished for hiding behind this noble philosophy to engage in such lowly acts. Where in Buddhism is it stated that one should hate and despise other religions? Where in Buddhism is it stated that one should engage in aggressive acts against all those who bear different ideas than what you think? After all, how many of these goodness preaching know-it-alls actually are aware of the true core of Buddhism? How many of them actually even adhere, at least once in a blue moon, to the principles preached? And IF they adhere to those principles, will they go around throwing rotten eggs at unsuspecting females, would they go around vandalizing others' hard earned property, would they go around harassing individuals from other religions and most of all, would they go around harassing all others who dare challenge their views? And WHERE were these righteous knights, rather noble guardians of Buddhism when people were being harassed, brutally murdered for political reasons, money and etc? WHERE in the world were they when innocent women get raped and tortured, harassed in the public? Too busy picketing against the average Mala and Sumana trying hard to manage the number of mouths they have to feed with their meager income by purchasing the occasional contraception I suppose.

It was just recently that I stumbled upon a certain pseudo Sinhala Buddhist page that claimed with much ardour that we must put a stop to women wearing trousers in this country. The page had a regular generous flow of pictures featuring female backsides clad in denims. I wonder how "Sinhala Buddhist" they were feeling when they chased random females down the streets, taking so much pains to photograph their derriers.

So lets say they do manage to chase off all the Muslims, Tamils and even the Christians out of the country. What next? Who to pick on next? I'm sure they'l be flying at each other's throats next, the "Sinhala Buddhists" murdering each other over cast issues and whatnot.

So BBS Puh-leese GAL! (Get a Life!)!